Alexander Stepanov

Painter, graphic artist. Born in St Petersburg (1861) in the family of a nobleman, art critic and amateur painter called Nikolai Stepanov (1822–1874) and his wife Natalia Kniper (1831–1911). Graduated from the School for the Deaf and Dumb in St Petersburg and studied at the School of Drawing of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (until 1883) and the Imperial Academy of Arts (1883–91). Awarded the title of first-class artist. Full member of the Imperial Society of Russian Watercolourists, member of the Arkhip Kuinji Society and the Mussar Mondays. Died in St Petersburg (1911). Contributed to exhibitions (from 1883). Contributed to the exhibitions of the Imperial Society of Russian Watercolourists (1883, 1893–1902, 1904, 1906–10), Imperial Academy of Arts (1884, 1899, 1908–11), St Petersburg Society of Artists (1894–1903, 1909, 1910), Blanc et noir (1903), Fellowship of Artists (1904, 1905), First Female Art Circle (1905), Pan-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod (1896) and a posthumous one-man show at the Imperial Society of Russian Watercolourists (1912).